Using Textures

Textures are useful in Lathe Magic as a way to help you visualize how your design might look in wood. A default texture is included in the program distribution. You can add additional textures by inserting .jpg images into the Lathe Magic folder labeled Textures. These images can be your own, those you buy, or public domain images from the web. A large number of seamless wood grain images can be found near the bottom of the page Sketchup Textures.

Default Wood Texture

When you start Lathe Magic, the 3D view of the design will use the default wood texture as shown to the left.

 

Changing Texture

Select menu item File-Open Texture. A standard Windows file dialog will open and a new texture can be selected.

Dark Wood

 

Apple

Ironwood

 

Dual Wood

You can use a photo editing program to mix various woods textures. This would be useful if you glued various woods together and want to tailor the design to the wood you have.

 

In this example, the design dots were moved so block boundaries match up with the wood texture boundaries.

 

For hollow designs, the texture carries through to the interior.

Wood Burning Patterns

Using a photo editing program, you can layer a wood burning pattern onto a wood texture so you can see how it matches up with your Lathe Magic design.

Grid

You can use more than wood textures. For example, a simple grid.

Photos

Any image can be used. Whether you plan to carve, paint, wood burn, epoxy fill, pierce, or use any other decorative technique, you can check out the look before you start on the real thing.
   

Lathe Magic Products are designed by Rich Schafermeyer
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